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they hired the VA before they even contacted Scarlett. Here’s what probably happened. OpenAI people realize they can do TTS for ChatGPT so they hire some voice

they hired the VA before they even contacted Scarlett. Here’s what probably happened. OpenAI people realize they can do TTS for ChatGPT so they hire some voice actors. Some people point out that it would be cool if it could be as good as it is in Her, especially with 4o on the way, so they decide to contact Scarlett Johansson either to do a voice or just some promotional thing. She declines, but after 4o is released OpenAI realizes they can fairly make the comparison to the movie based on the quality and speed of the voice. Simply subtly referencing the film via an obvious parallel doesn’t constitute deceptive impersonation.

Retric 2y ago
That seems like an extremely generous interpretation on OpenAI’s behalf especially the timing of when they first think of the movie. Personally there’s many ways they could have been less suspicious from my perspective. Have a large number of voices or the ability to tweet them in many ways and no one voice seems important. Contact many famous people and it would have seemed like a promotional rather than a reference. Have someone lower on the totem pole than the CEO of a multi billionaire dollar corporation trying to make the deal. This not being about an actor playing an AI assistant in a movie vs the voice of an AI product. Not actually making the reference in a tweet. The phrase ‘the preponderance of the evidence’ comes to mind.
- atleastoptimal 2y ago
  not sure what you mean by the “tweet them in many ways” sentence. There’s a chance they did contact other celebrities. We only know for sure they contacted Scarlett due to her lawsuit. Here’s the thing. No matter what, people would make the reference to Her. It’s like how everyone would make the connection to any sci fi movie if a device came out similar to the one in it. A woman’s voice as a virtual assistant is a very broad UI category, and being cheeky and drawing the comparison to a specific movie on everyone’s mind doesn’t constitute misleading impersonation, especially when you consider from OpenAI’s view the fact that they hired a different actress and didn’t ask her to do a Her impersonation.
  - Retric 2y ago
    *tweak > especially when you consider from OpenAI’s view the fact that they hired a different actress and didn’t ask her to do a Her impersonation. That’s not specifically what they are accused of doing. The voice actress’s raw audio is only half the story, how they manipulated that audio makes a real difference in what the model sounded like. As many people assumed it was her objectively the end result was close. Worse the model sounds closer to Scarlet than the voice actress does. Put another way, they wanted to end up at X and also happened to end up close to X when the search space was huge. Where did you get that Huge TV? It’s the craziest thing it just happened to fall off a truck.

Retric 2y ago

That seems like an extremely generous interpretation on OpenAI’s behalf especially the timing of when they first think of the movie. Personally there’s many ways they could have been less suspicious from my perspective. Have a large number of voices or the ability to tweet them in many ways and no one voice seems important. Contact many famous people and it would have seemed like a promotional rather than a reference. Have someone lower on the totem pole than the CEO of a multi billionaire dollar corporation trying to make the deal. This not being about an actor playing an AI assistant in a movie vs the voice of an AI product. Not actually making the reference in a tweet. The phrase ‘the preponderance of the evidence’ comes to mind.

atleastoptimal 2y ago
not sure what you mean by the “tweet them in many ways” sentence. There’s a chance they did contact other celebrities. We only know for sure they contacted Scarlett due to her lawsuit. Here’s the thing. No matter what, people would make the reference to Her. It’s like how everyone would make the connection to any sci fi movie if a device came out similar to the one in it. A woman’s voice as a virtual assistant is a very broad UI category, and being cheeky and drawing the comparison to a specific movie on everyone’s mind doesn’t constitute misleading impersonation, especially when you consider from OpenAI’s view the fact that they hired a different actress and didn’t ask her to do a Her impersonation.
- Retric 2y ago
  *tweak > especially when you consider from OpenAI’s view the fact that they hired a different actress and didn’t ask her to do a Her impersonation. That’s not specifically what they are accused of doing. The voice actress’s raw audio is only half the story, how they manipulated that audio makes a real difference in what the model sounded like. As many people assumed it was her objectively the end result was close. Worse the model sounds closer to Scarlet than the voice actress does. Put another way, they wanted to end up at X and also happened to end up close to X when the search space was huge. Where did you get that Huge TV? It’s the craziest thing it just happened to fall off a truck.